It all starts with a great shower and a bike ride…
I wake up around 7am (I used to be a real early bird, but my youngest daughter didn’t sleep properly for years, so I’m still catching up on that missed sleep – at least, that’s what I tell myself) and hop in the shower. Between us – me and my hubby – we get our girls ready for a day at school.
After dropping them off, I grab my bike and ride the 7 miles into Bristol – I could get the bus, but I’d rather ride because it means I get to be outside in the fresh air, and I get some fab exercise. I’m one of the very lucky Entrepreneurial-Spark chiclets, so I am very lucky to call a gorgeous 5th floor open plan office my ‘home’ for the time being. I spend the day working on my business – I’m a nutritionist so I’ll either be seeing clients or planning and working on my big launch for January – a new programme called Start Right and Carry On.
I’ll have lunch in the office canteen – the food there is great and totally ‘nutritionist approved’ (aside from, ahem, the odd chocolate muffin) and eat with some of my fellow ‘ESpark chiclets’. It’s an amazing hub of different businesses doing amazing things, and we’ve all found that the sharing of ideas and experience has changed our businesses and goals like crazy.
I generally leave at around 2.30 to ride back home and collect my kids from school. It means my working day is pretty short – I have to pack a lot in, and I also end up working most evenings to make sure I get everything done. My hubby is my web and tech man – hurrah – we often spend our evenings sitting at the kitchen table, planning next steps together.
I head to bed anywhere between 10 and 11 – again, due to the lack of sleep we had, any time after 10pm feels like a late night, and I just can’t focus the next day if I stay up too late. That said, I’m so excited about my new project that I have occasionally stayed up until 11.30 – totally wild, I know.
Motivation is…
I find it easy to be motivated because I know that the work I am doing is so useful and is exactly what the nutrition/diet world needs – it lies smack in the middle of hardcore ‘healthy/clean’ eating and the programs created to help you lose weight fast, but not actually learn to eat well – and I know that come January, a lot of people will jump straight onto the yoyo diet bandwagon and I want to help them eat better, enjoy their foods and be healthy.
At the weekend, I spend time with my family – in the Summer we might head to the beach (I like to call myself a surfer, but in fact, I’m as rubbish now as I was 25 years ago when I started) or go for a walk in the woods – I nearly always carry a couple of carrier bags with me because I hate to see litter so I’ll spend a few minutes picking up rubbish and posting a picture for #2minutebeachclean. The person who inspires me at the moment is a chap called Martin Dorey – he started the #2minutebeachclean and his passion about cleaning up our beaches is just mindblowing.
Women: Stop feeling guilty
Not just because feeling guilty is pointless, but when you feel guilty about what you eat, you won’t get any benefit from it at all. If you have to eat chocolate (and who doesn’t?), then enjoy it. Worry about the calories (if you must) later, but when you are eating it, at the very least, take time to actually enjoy it!
Find out more about Claire now…click here to visit her website.